US official says that troops have withdrawn from Syria

BAGHDAD: After days of back and forth over US President Donald
Trump's decision to pullout American troops from Syria, a US
military official said Friday the process of withdrawal has begun,
declining to comment on specific timetables or movements.

Col. Sean Ryan, spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting the
Islamic State group, said "the process of our deliberate withdrawal
from Syria" has started.

"Out of concern for operational security, we will not discuss
specific timelines, locations or troops movements," the
Baghdad-based official said in a statement emailed to The Associated
Press.

There were no other details, and it was not immediately clear how
many vehicles or whether any troop units had withdrawn.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which
monitors the conflict in Syria through a network of activists on
the ground, said the withdrawal began Thursday night. It said a
convoy of about 10 armored vehicles, in addition to some trucks,
pulled out from Syria's northeastern town of Rmeilan into Iraq.

Confirmation of the first withdrawals comes amid confusion over
plans to implement Trump's pullout order and threats from Turkey to
attack the Kurds, who have been America's partners on the ground in
the war against the Islamic State group in Syria.

Badran Ciya Kurd, a Syrian Kurdish official reached by the AP,
declined to comment about the withdrawal. Others were not
immediately available.

There are 2,000 American troops in Syria. Trump's abrupt decision
in December to pull them, declaring in a tweet the defeat of IS,
sent shockwaves across the region and a flurry of criticism from
some of his generals and national security advisers, and led to the
resignation of US defense minister James Mattis and the top US
envoy to the anti-IS coalition. It also led to major criticism that
the US was abandoning its local Kurdish allies amid Turkish threats
of an imminent attack.

On Sunday, US national security adviser John Bolton said American
troops will not leave northeastern Syria until IS is defeated and
American-allied Kurdish fighters are protected, signaling a
slow-down in Trump's initial order for a rapid withdrawal.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is on a tour of the
region, has also sought to reassure the Kurds that they will be
safe after US troops withdraw from the country.

"These have been folks that have fought with us and it's important
that we do everything we can to ensure that those folks that fought
with us are protected," Pompeo said of the Kurds while visiting
Irbil, the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region,
after talks in Baghdad.

After initially tweeting about the decision to bring back US troops
"now," Trump this week said "we will be leaving at a proper pace
while at the same time continuing to fight ISIS and doing all else
that is prudent and necessary!"

Kurdish officials, meanwhile, have demanded clarifications from the
US over its intentions. A US troop pullout leaves the Kurds exposed
to Turkish attacks from one side, and Syrian government troops on
the other. The withdrawal benefits Syrian President Bashar Assad
and his international backers, Russia and Iran, who are primed to
move into the region to fill a vacuum left behind by the
Americans.

Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the
Americans are not serious about withdrawing from Syria.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow Friday, she said it appears to
Moscow that the US "is looking for a reason to stay." She said
Russia has not seen public statements laying out the US strategy in
Syria and so cannot be sure that the US is serious about
leaving.

US troops have been involved in Syria's war since 2014 when the
first elite force arrived in the country to advise Kurdish-led
fighters who were involved in battles against the Islamic State
group.